Tupac Martir specified and used an Avolites Diamond 4 console to programme and operate 5 high profile shows for London's recent Fashion Week event – including Top Shop, Christopher Kane, Aquascutum and Peter Jensen, for which lighting was designed by Italian LD Manolo.

They all took place in P3 an underground space at the University of Westminster apart from Aquascutum, which was staged on the second floor of the Science Museum in South Kensington.

Martir is a UK based LD, programmer, operator, director, and the Diamond 4 is currently his console of choice for shows like this where he needs instant access to all the individual lighting fixtures right there in front of him. Using the D4 like this also gave LD Manolo the chance to tweak channels and lights as the shows were taking place.

Both venues featured large ETC Source Four rigs – 146 at the Science Museum plus 14 PARs and six 4-cell cycs, used for wall washing, and 140 Source Fours lining the runway in P3. All lighting was supplied by London-based HFM Lighting.

For the Topshop Show they also had a fabulous scenic spiral chandelier at the entrance to the runway, complete with 365 individual lightbulbs. To get really funky chasing effects on this, the bulbs were patched into 121 channels of the D4.

The D4's Softpatch facility also came into its own for laying out the desk top and putting each lamp in a logical place on the console. With the venues all used for multiple shows, and extremely short changeover times, the hard patch was not always in the order Martir needed for their show. “I was able to do this very quickly when I needed to for one of the P3 shows” he states.